For generations, Chinese school kids were taught that the Great Wall of China could be seen from space. Now the textbooks are being rewritten. Yang Liwei, China's first man in space, says he could not see it as he orbited Earth.

The publisher of the textbooks saying otherwise has been informed by the Ministry of Education to stop printing the falsehood. Even though the Wall stretches for thousands of miles, it is not wide enough to be visible from space.

Wang Xiang, a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference delegate, says the falsehood "is a disadvantage to the real knowledge acquired by our elementary school students." NASA confirms that the Wall cannot be seen from space.